Cameron the Calm walks a high wire

LONDON — One of David Cameron’s most striking traits is his calmness under fire. His predecessor as prime minister, Gordon Brown, would hurl objects around the room, swear and shout. His predecessor as Conservative prime minister, John Major, succumbed to panic and paranoia. Cameron will need all the imperturbability he can call on to survive to the end of the EU referendum campaign without splitting his party, falling out with Britain’s European allies, losing the referendum — or, possibly, all three.

The prime minister’s Chatham House speech and letter to Donald Tusk, setting out the terms on which Britain wants to renegotiate its EU membership, illustrated the high-wire nature of this challenge. Too tough in his demands and he would infuriate other EU member states and come back empty-handed from the negotiations. Too insipid, and he would be accused of betrayal by Euroskeptics at home and risk sending floating voters toward the “Leave” camp.

So what does the instant reaction to his renegotiation terms tell us about the balance he decided to strike?

From his European partners came a mixture of pragmatism and posturing. His most contentious (but most domestically important) demand — that migrants from the EU to Britain be required to work for four years before claiming in-work benefits — was predictably the least popular, with senior Europeans describing it variously as “difficult,” “highly problematic” and having “serious doubts about its legality.”

Such talk suits Cameron, though. If his proposals had been instantly accepted abroad, his critics at home would complain that he hadn’t gone nearly far enough in his demands. Better to be able to declare victory in a few months’ time after a tough battle in Brussels.

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It was the reception in Britain, though, that will have alarmed the prime minister more. Not from Euroskeptics such as the Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who described the demands as “thin gruel.” He and his fellow 70-odd irreconcilable MPs wouldn’t have been placated had Cameron demanded the end of the euro and the abolition of the European Court of Justice. For them, nothing short of Brexit will do.

More worrying for Cameron was the response of the center-right press. The Daily Telegraph said he had “given up on trying to make real changes.” The Sun wrote that he “aimed low and missed.” The Times was less brutal, saying only that his reforms “erred on the side of moderation.” Most trenchant was the Daily Mail, which condemned the demands as “a pathetic list of requests,” drawn up in a “pusillanimous, oh-so-timid letter.” It concluded that the prime minister had “thrown in the towel before the bell had sounded for Round One.”

Now, the Daily Mail has often prided itself on having its finger on the pulse of Middle England, but all too often its diagnosis has been quite wrong. Nonetheless, Cameron will be frustrated that, even if he eventually wins all the concessions he has asked for, these won’t be deemed enough by the right-wing press.

Their position is unfair. Cameron is demanding far more from his European partners than those newspapers’ heroine, Margaret Thatcher, ever did. And to compare his renegotiation, as some have done, with that of Harold Wilson, the Labour prime minister, in 1974-75, is risible. At that time, the U.K. was concerned about the Common Agricultural Policy, economic and monetary union, the harmonization of VAT, parliamentary sovereignty in industrial and fiscal policies, and the U.K. budgetary contribution. All Wilson secured was an agreement to allow imports of New Zealand dairy products, a new regional policy and a budgetary correction mechanism.

That renegotiation was indeed cosmetic. Cameron’s needs to be real. If it does produce substantive change, though, it puts him in a strong position to win the “Remain” vote. For, given a choice between two extremes and a “happy medium” outcome, most of us are psychologically disposed to opt for the latter.

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Let me illustrate this by looking back to the few years from 1999, when I was involved in helping to lead the “No” campaign against Britain joining the euro. Tony Blair was then desperate to join the euro, but Labour was committed in its manifesto to holding a referendum before doing so. Our job in the “No” campaign was to keep public opinion so hostile to euro membership that he wouldn’t risk calling a referendum.

We in the “No” campaign made being pro-European a prerequisite to membership. We wouldn’t even associate with the “outers.” For we wanted voters to be faced with three, not two, choices: in the EU and in the euro; in the EU but outside the euro; or out of both the EU and the euro. The option we campaigned for was the sensible happy medium. That, it turned out, was what the British people (wisely) wanted, too.

Judging by Cameron’s behavior this week, he is adopting a similar strategy. He peppered his speech with the word “reasonable” and asked challenging questions of both sides. Undoubtedly, he is trying to capture the center ground. Although only two options — “Remain” and “Leave” — will be on the ballot paper, he will portray his option as the happy medium between two extremes. Voters will be asked to support the “reasonable” option of renegotiated EU membership rather than, at one extreme, leaving altogether, and at the other, unquestioning support for the status quo.

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Whatever the Daily Mail may think, there is a huge mass of voters who haven’t yet made up their minds on the European issue and are prepared to be swayed. Cameron’s calculation is that, in the end, they will go for his brand of sweet reason rather than the strident populism of the UKIP leader, Nigel Farage.

It will only work, though, if he brings back from Brussels substantive reforms that will genuinely make a difference to Britain’s membership. And he has a greater chance of achieving that if the polls continue to show that his voters are ready to contemplate Brexit. At the moment, those who have decided are split, more or less, 50-50 for and against EU membership. That, however, excludes the “don’t knows.”

And in the end, it’s not people like Rees-Mogg — who have already made up their minds — who matter: It is the undecided who will be the deciding force. At this rate, they may well opt to trust Cameron the Calm.

Mary Ann Sieghart has been a political columnist for the Times, the Economist and the Independent. She was on the steering committee of the “No” campaign against British membership of the euro.

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